Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s five-nation tour, which began in the island nations of Sao Tome and Principe, will end in South Africa this week.
Lula will stay for just a day in South Africa, ending a week-long African tour that has taken him predominantly to Lusophone nations including Angola, Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe.
Arguably, while Lula’s country may share a language and culture with the four nations, in political terms he is closest to South Africa’s president Thabo Mbeki. Since the Brazilian workers’ leader took office in January, Mbeki and his emissaries have notched up significant flying time between Johannesburg and Sao Paulo, sealing an alliance of Southern nations that includes India.
Mbeki was also in the Brazilian capital last week to attend the Socialist International of progressive governments. Previously, the South African leader attended Lula’s inauguration. His foreign minister Nkosazana Zuma paid a state visit earlier this year and was also part of the inauguration of the India, Brazil and South Africa Dialogue Forum (IBSA) in June.
This inter-continental forum draws the countries together on three key issues: to push for a humane globalisation; to lobby for the better representation of Southern nations at the UN Security Council and to bolster the fortunes of a group of 22 developing countries which effectively toppled the World Trade Organisation negotiating round at Cancun, Mexico in October.
South Africa’s Department of Foreign Affairs presents the forum as an alliance to watch: “(It is) a pioneer meeting of three vibrant democracies, from three regions of the developing world, active on a global scale”.
Lula’s election on a workers ticket has appeared to bolster and influence Mbeki into taking a feistier stand against the failures of market economies. Returning from the Socialist International last week, Mbeki issued his strongest critique yet of the markets.
Until now, business in South Africa (traditionally white and largely conservative) has seen Mbeki as its crown prince. Poverty could not be solved by reliance on “the market”, said Mbeki. “Necessarily the democratic state has to intervene to commit the resources that are needed to pull millions of our people out of the conditions of poverty and underdevelopment that afflict them.”
A strong, interventionist and spending state is the antithesis of the slim, hands-off state of neoliberal ideology. IPS reported last week that the older traditional members of the Socialist International have either been voted out of office as social democracy enters Europe or did not attend last week’s gathering.
Increasingly, its fortunes will be determined by nations like Brazil and South Africa, believes Mbeki.
These members of the International had a duty to construct a “new world order based on a new multilateralism for peace, security, sustainable development” and to build a “global coalition to confront the ‘unacceptable cost’ of globalisation”.
Politics is not the only item on the agenda – Lula has included 160 business people on his delegation and they will meet with South African business Saturday. Brazil plans to invest $100-million to improve Angola’s sugar cane industry, Brazil’s trade and development minister, Luis Fernando Furlan, said Monday.
Brazil, whose trade with Africa now totals five billion U.S. dollars, enjoys a trade surplus with South Africa garnered by growing imports of meat, mineral fuel, machinery and mechanical appliances.
In turn, Brazil is an important feeder country for South Africa’s growing tourism economy with five weekly flights between the two capitals already bursting at the wings.
In addition to a meeting with Mbeki, Lula, who arrived in South Africa on Friday, will also meet with former president Nelson Mandela at his Johannesburg home. He heads home on Saturday evening. – IPS